Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, author, and former attorney known as the co-founder of PayPal, company operating a worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders.
Early years
On October 11, 1967, Peter Andreas Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany. He is the son of Susanne and Klaus Friedrich Thiel. He is married to his long-time partner, Matt Danzeisen, in Vienna, Austria in October 2017. The family migrated to the US when Peter was only one year old and lived in Cleveland, where Peter’s father worked as a chemical engineer.
In 1977, before settling in Foster City, California, the family had lived in South Africa and South West Africa, and Peter had to change elementary schools seven times.
Education
While Peter was attending middle school in San Mateo, he excelled in mathematics and even scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition. Peter went on to study philosophy at Stanford University after graduating from San Mateo High School. In 1987, he founded The Stanford Review, a paper for conservative and libertarian viewpoints, through the funding of Irving Kristol.
Peter served as the first editor-in-chief in The Stanford Review. He remained in that post until he received his degree in Bachelor of Arts in 1989. In 1992, Peter continued to Stanford Law School and acquired his Doctor of Jurisprudence.
Career
After graduating, he clerked for Judge James Larry Edmondson of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. After his clerkship, Peter worked as a securities lawyer in New York for Sullivan & Cromwell. He left the law firm after seven months and three days, citing a lack of value in his work. He then took a job at Credit Suisse as a derivatives trader in currency options from 1993 on while also working as a speechwriter for William Bennett, the former United States Secretary of Education.
Upon returning to the Bay Area, he noticed that the development of the personal computer and internet had already altered the economic landscape and the dot-com boom was well underway. With the financial support from his family and friends, Peter was able to raise $1 million toward the establishment of Thiel Capital Management and embark on his venture capital career. Early on, Peter experienced a setback after investing $100,000 from his friend, Luke Nosek’s unsuccessful web-based calendar project. However, his luck came up when Nosek’s friend, Max Levchin, introduced him to his cryptography-related company idea. In 1998, it became their first venture called Confinity.
PayPal
With Confinity, Peter realized they could develop software to solve gaps in making online payments. Although the use of credit cards and the expansion of automated teller machine networks provided the customers with more payment options available, not all merchants could gain the necessary hardware to accept credit cards. Thus, consumers were often left with little choices and instead had to pay with personal checks or exact cash. Peter wanted to create a type of digital wallet in the hopes of ensuring more consumer convenience and security by encrypting data on digital devices, and 1999, Confinity launched PayPal.
PayPal promised to open up new more possibilities for handling money. In 1999, when PayPal launched at a successful press conference, the representatives from the Deutsche Bank and Nokia sent him $3 million in venture funding using PayPal on their PalmPilots. It continued to grow even more through mergers with Elon Musk’s financial services company, X.com and with a company specializing in mobile commerce in 2000 called Pixo. These mergers allowed PayPal to expand into the wireless phone market and transformed it into a safer and even more a user-friendly tool by enabling the users to transfer money via an e-mail and a free online registration, rather than exchanging bank account information.
PayPal went public on February 15, 2002. Peter remained the CEO of the company until it was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in October of that year. His 3.7% stake was worth $55 million at the time of acquisition. In Silicon Valley circles, Peter is referred to as the Don of the PayPal Mafia.
After the acquisition of PayPal, he founded a global macro hedge fund, Clarium Capital. In 2004, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, and continues to serve as the chairman as of 2018. In 2005, along with Luke Nosek and Ken Howery (PayPal partners), they launched his Founders Fund, a venture capital firm. Earlier, Peter became Facebook’s first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake in August 2004 for $500,000. In 2012, for over $1 billion, he sold the majority of his shares in Facebook but still remains on the board. In 2010, he also co-founded Valar Ventures and operates it as the chairman, co-founded Mithril Capital, of which is the investment committee chair in 2012, and from 2015 to 2017, served as a partner at Y Combinator.